FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT HANDS ON APPROACH - PAGE 4

Tyler Hagen's first visit to the new Museum of Contemporary Art turned out to be a touchy experience. Intrigued by artist Richard Long's "Fire Rock Circle," an arrangement of pock-marked, rust-colored rocks on the carpeted floor, 9-year-old Tyler "decided to rearrange them," recalled his dad, Neil, a Chicago oral surgeon. Caught red-handed holding a red rock, Tyler was "accosted by a guard," said Hagen, who told him to put it back. "My son," the boy's father added, "is very hands on."

Something special is happening to 4th graders at Hart School in North Chicago. Through the work of two teachers there, the 10-year-olds are recording dramatic improvements in state test scores, which have made them the pride of a school district where pride has been in short supply in recent years. What has faculty, administration, parents and students bursting their buttons is the work that teachers Andrew Preuss and Gregory Childs have done over the past two years with Hart's 4th graders.

If you think about it, there are plenty of naturally occurring phenomena that cannot be explained logically. Take the swallows returning to Capistrano on the same day each year. Or the dog that waits by the window on the day his owner is returning from vacation. Or anecdotal evidence of houseplants faring better when someone speaks to them. Coming under the heading of inexplicable, yet viewed as quite ordinary to those who practice it, is a growing hands-on healing technique known as reiki.

A young boy knelt next to Karl Dunbar in church and stared. The staring Dunbar expected, more than the exchange he would have with the boy. A black man, Dunbar has several splotches of white skin under his eyes and chin. His hands, feet, knees and elbows are mostly white. The Bears defensive line coach was born with a rare condition resulting from a loss of pigment known as vitiligo, an incurable disease that afflicts 1 percent of the population and is caused when the body cannot metabolize Vitamin E. Growing up in Opelousas, La., kids cruelly called Dunbar "Spotmaker."

Move over Cusacks. Step aside Pivens. The Tate brothers--Larenz, Lahmard and Larron--are ready to take over as Chicago's first family of entertainment. Between them, the former West Siders have acted in more than 50 film and TV projects since the late '80s. And now the brothers are tackling the business end of making movies. In 2001, they started their own production company, Tatemen Entertainment Inc. A few months ago, the company released "The Hot Spot," a straight-to-DVD comedy.

Ann Lurie isn't very good at being merely a name etched in granite. Take the coming fundraising gala to celebrate the completion of the new Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, a 1.25 million-square-foot facility in Streeterville with an $855 million price tag, to which she contributed $100 million. Not only will Lurie and her late husband's name be visible on the 23-story building, her fingerprints will be on just about everything else. Lurie brought in a party planner for the gala April 20, her birthday.

Q. Sox fans will be flocking to this weekend's SoxFest at the downtown Hyatt. Are you enthused about your team's possibilities after acquiring Bartolo Colon and Billy Koch? A. Whenever you go into a baseball season and you have hope, realistic hope . . . well, I can't wait to get to spring training. But I am really never pleased. It always can be better. Even if we are so fortunate to be lights out at the beginning of the season, we still are going to be churning away back in our offices, trying to find ways to get better.

In the chaotic aftermath of deadly Hurricane Andrew 13 years ago, President Bush's father dispatched a fixer to South Florida to restore order after a breakdown in relief efforts: Andrew Card, then secretary of transportation. Now Card is chief of staff for a president who is personally taking the reins of relief after Hurricane Katrina's assault on the Gulf Coast. And President Bush, mindful of the lesson of his father's delayed and frayed federal response to a natural disaster, is unlikely to repeat the mistake, particularly with Card there to reinforce the message.

Macy's North Chairman Frank Guzzetta walks through the State Street flagship, taking a bite out of a pumpkin macaroon from Sarah's Pastries & Candies, a Chicago gourmet bakery that just opened in the store's first-floor arcade. After raving about the crunchy, silver-dollar-size treat, he turns his attention to the display. The shop has been open for less than 24 hours, and Guzzetta sees something missing. "I want it to look like a French pastry shop," he said, flagging down an employee and putting him to work arranging the platters of petit fours, box cakes and chocolates in stair-stepped tiers against a pink backdrop.